Kobe Fashion Museum, Kōbe-shi, Japan

Kobe Fashion Museum (神戸ファッション美術館) is the first museum in Japan to specialise in fashion. The Library located on the 3rd floors houses various materials of high value related to fashion, all of which are open to the public as well as to those students, creators and business people engaged in the fashion field. The Orbis Hall on the 5th floor is the place where young people may get together for various events and entertainment in order to foster and promote a new culture of fashion in Kobe.

Kobe Fashion Museum (Kobe Fashion Laboratory) is Japan 's first art museum with fashion theme. It opened in 1997 in the Maritime City "Rokko Island" in Higashi Nada Ward, Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture.

The appearance is a novel design that makes the UFO image. The interior is a large museum facility with 4 layers and a floor area of ​​17,000 m 2. We are doing a unique exhibition that catches fashion concerns from various perspectives. Also, for the purpose of fostering human resources in the fashion industry, we offer clothing courses in seven categories: "material", "color", "decoration", "history", "designer", "society", and "media".

1F - Museum: (there are adjacent Kobe Yukari Museum) Venue such as permanent exhibition and special exhibition
3F - Library: art fashion, interior-related collection of books about 28,000 books and classic film such as video materials and in kind, such as swatches article
4F - Resource Center: Material Hall
5 F - Orbis Hall: event venue for fashion shows etc.

We introduce the theme of the basic exhibition guide and collection items.

Structure: We introduce costume structure roughly divided into five types, "waist cloth type", "wound cloth type", "licking type", "front opening type", "body shape type" through national costumes of the world region.

Material: We will exhibit the properties and texture of natural materials such as "silk" "hair" "cotton" "hemp" etc. and new materials developed every day using samples.

Color: We introduce various natural dyes produced from plants and animals, and textile products with synthetic dyes.

Restoration: We will exhibit costumes restored by the collaborative project with Osaka Shoin Women's University. The reconstructed material accurately reproducing the original can be touched in practice, and you can check the structure, technique and so on.

History
The Kobe Fashion Museum is Japan’s first public sector museum specializing in fashion. Opened on April 25, 1997, it symbolizes Kobe as the City of Fashion. Aiming to promote fashion-related industry and culture, it also functions as a facility for training and education, publicity and communication, and for attracting visitors.

Collection:
The collection consists of more than 9,000 Western costumes from the 18th-20th century, and folk costumes from over 70 countries. Additionally, the museum holds 2000 accessories, 1500 fashion plates, 2000 fashion photos, and over 4000 movie posters. The library holds an enormous amount of books, magazines, and videos.

18th century collection
This collection focuses on European women’s clothing of the 18th century, but also includes menswear, fans, and accessories. Robe à la française is a type of women’s gown that was worn throughout the 18th century. Attached to the chest is a panel of fabric known as a stomacher. The neck and front panels are decorated with frills and fly fringes.

19th century collection
This collection focuses on 19th century European women’s clothing, but also includes men’s suits, hats and shawls, reticules and other accessories. There are examples of day dresses and evening dresses in romantic style, characterized by bell-like silhouette skirts; crinoline style, which is worn with underwear called crinolines to provide volume to the skirt; and bustle style, which uses a frame attached below the waist to give volume at the rear.

Folk costumes and ceremonial robes
The museum also has 19th century and 20th century costumes and decorative articles from many different regions. They include examples of a long kurta worn by Maharajah class men in India, and costumes such as embroidered semi-formal court robes worn by the Qing Dynasty royal family in China, employing unparalleled hand work.

20th century collection
This collection includes garments by some of the top designers of the 20th century, from Callot Soeurs, Paul Poiret and Mariano Fortuny, Gabrielle Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli and Christian Dior to Alexander McQueen and Martin Margiela.

Photography and poster collection
Some 2,000 fashion photographs taken by prominent photographers include the work of Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Man Ray, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon.

Highlight:
Clothing related books from the 19th century to the early 20th century
VOGUE, HARPER'S BAZAAR, back issues of LIFE, such as mode magazine
All 21 films of Strobe = Yuire movie film
Junko Ouchi Collection (about 46,000 slides from top designers since the 1970s)
Approximately 4,800 points such as environmental images and documentary images,
Approximately 2,400 fashion shows in Paris, Milan, London, Tokyo
Approximately 30,000 pieces of fabrics in France, Italy in the 19th century - early 20th century (copyright free)
Restored works by collaborative work with Osaka Shoin Women's University Department of Clothing

Fashion Plate
The museum possesses about 1,500 fashion plates from publications such as Gazette du bon ton and Modes et manières d’aujourd’hui.
There are over 300 mannequins, broadly categorized into three types: Mannequins made to suit Western historical dress of the 18th and 19th centuries, mannequins suitable for 20th century and later clothing, and wooden mannequins made for folk costumes.

Mannequins
There are over 300 mannequins, broadly categorized into three types: Mannequins made to suit Western historical dress of the 18th and 19th centuries, mannequins suitable for 20th century and later clothing, and wooden mannequins made for folk costumes.

18th–19th century mannequins
To create mannequins appropriate for clothing of different periods and styles, over 200 garments from the collection were measured many times to provide the detailed data needed for designing mannequins that could be shared by as large a range of clothing as possible. Hairstyles and makeup are selected so as to best reflect the atmosphere of each period and location.

Modern mannequins
The modern mannequins, they did not need as much specialized specifications as the x above, but the museum created 50 mannequins while keeping in mind the beauty and quality needed to represent the museum. The mannequins have blue skin since they were originally planned to be displayed on a blue stage.

Mannequins
Styling
A mannequin needs to be able to appear in different poses and offer the opportunity to be styled with accessories on its ears, nose, arms, and legs.

How are the mannequins made?
The mannequins are made of natural solid wood from Thai grown silk trees which made the heaviest mannequin weigh over 100 kg.

Study corner
Construction
Through the folk costumes of the world region, we introduce costume structure roughly divided into five types, "waist cloth type", "wound cloth type" "lengthening type", "front opening type", "body type".

Video material: With the collection of the Kobe Fashion Museum, western costumes of the 18th century and later, ethnic costumes in over 70 countries, photographs, etc., together with music, photos and other information on the history of fashion from the 18th century to the present can be easily seen It is content.

In the library located in the 3rd floor of the hotel, you can browse about 40,000 volumes of fashion-related collections in Japan and overseas, as well as the back numbers of fashion magazines since the beginning of the 20th century.

Besides French, American and Italian vogue and elle, style, magazine, interior magazines, etc. that understand latest fashion are substantial, and audiovisual materials such as DVD, video, LD, CD etc are also available.

In addition, you can see the actual material such as textiles useful for design activities by touching it.

Library located on the 3rd floor houses various materials of high value related to fashion, all of which are open to the public as well as to those students, creators and business people engaged in the fashion field. Orbis Hall on the 5th floor is the place where young people may get together for various events and entertainment in order to foster and promote a new culture of fashion in Kobe.

Material
We will exhibit the properties and texture of natural materials such as "silk" "hair" "cotton" "hemp" etc. and new materials to be developed daily using samples.

Color
We introduce various natural dyes produced from plants and animals, and textile products with synthetic dyes.

Restoration
Costumes restored by the collaborative project with Osaka Shoin Women's University will be exhibited. The reconstructed material that accurately reproduced the original can be touched in practice, and you can check the structure, technique and so on.